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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084834">learned the hard way about trust a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patcho418/pseuds/Patcho418'>Patcho418</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fall of Beacon (RWBY), Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, in which i literally can't write crosshares hurt/comfort without making it about ghosts, lms;gt really did a number on me</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:13:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,756</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084834</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patcho418/pseuds/Patcho418</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The locals have a number of supposedly wise sayings about the sand, though most of them she’s learned to dismiss. <em>The sand will guide you (to a longer shower than you should be taking), the sand holds many secrets (like what is fine on a beach but hellish in large quantities),</em> sayings like that that she’s had to learn to finish on her own.</p><p>One of them has stuck with her though: <em>the sand will wear you down or build you up.</em></p><p>Behind a cool veneer, tinted shades, and glossy chocolate lipstick, Coco’s about as built up as she can be.</p><p>The same very much can’t be said about Velvet, though.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Coco Adel/Velvet Scarlatina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>learned the hard way about trust a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Vacuo is a harsh place, as Coco has discovered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s mostly the sand, she thinks. Granted, it’s also the heat, and the flesh-eating beasts, and the lack of any water for miles around, but the sand’s the worst offender of them all. Not a day goes by where she doesn’t have to shower sand out of places where sand ought not be found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The locals have a number of supposedly wise sayings about the sand, though most of them she’s learned to dismiss. </span>
  <em>
    <span>The sand will guide you (to a longer shower than you should be taking), the sand holds many secrets (like what is fine on a beach but hellish in large quantities), </span>
  </em>
  <span>sayings like that that she’s had to learn to finish on her own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of them has stuck with her though: </span>
  <em>
    <span>the sand will wear you down or build you up</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco had never really gotten that one until recently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After all, Coco’s never been one for being worn down. After Beacon fell, she ploughed through her responsibilities without so much as a sweat or nail broken. She can’t fault anyone else for faltering where she prevailed - she’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Coco Adel,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and if she hadn’t prevailed there’d be no one else to step up to the plate - but she can certainly see why they had. The Fall of Beacon weighed heavily on lots of people, and sometimes she sees its lingering effects like ghosts over the lives of her team, haunting them without relent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not Coco.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Behind a cool veneer, tinted shades, and glossy chocolate lipstick, Coco’s about as built up as she can be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The same very much can’t be said about Velvet, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Fall of Beacon hit her </span>
  <em>
    <span>hard.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Like, Paladin’s fist to the face hard. Coco had seen it in the way she carried herself in the day following, jumping at the shadows inhabiting their old school’s ruins and carrying herself just a bit smaller than she normally would. The bruises and scrapes staining her fair skin only darkened through the long, solemn days, untouched by her own Aura. Velvet had always been sentimental, even to her own detriment. Her heart, stitched together by years of silent and agonizing resilience she never should have had to go through on her own, is something she’s always worn proudly on her sleeve, in plain view of others - and all the pain with it, displayed as if worried making it go away would undo all that she’d been through to survive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those were the hard days. Coco remembers walking through Beacon as if it had been a graveyard, and yet between all the ghosts and the rubble and the Grimm who’d dared to stick around and find out what would happen to a bunch of grief-stricken, gun-toting students after losing the place many called home, Coco had managed to keep it all together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sand is nothing to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it makes so much sense to her why Velvet complains about it so much.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The sand will wear you down or build you up.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Not much wearing down to do on those already at their lowest, Coco figures.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco finds herself again in the shower after a brutal day of training in the sand, grumpily scrubbing the grime from her now-tanned skin. They’ve been attending Shade long enough for the wear of the desert to be apparent on her skin (though she can’t deny how much she loves what the sun is doing for her complexion), but there’s still lots of things to get used to. Lots of things different from Beacon, and lots of ghosts to exorcise along with the wet sand collecting around the drain by her feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She spends her shower thinking about anything but that. She’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Coco Adel,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she doesn’t give power to ghosts who hold nothing over her. She thinks about how she can accessorize tomorrow, and she thinks about making sure Gianduja is tuned up for their field assignment in a week, and she thinks about how much nicer this shower would be with a cute girl scrubbing her hair from behind and reminding her just how toned and impressive her traps are.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when the water runs cold and the sand’s scrubbed away, Coco can’t help but invite those ghosts in just a bit. Just enough to remind her to keep it all built up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s Coco Adel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s the one who doesn’t let any of it affect her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco slips into her loungewear (if you ask her, at least; her colleagues may find less tasteful names for her attire, and she </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely</span>
  </em>
  <span> has less tasteful critiques of their own to contribute to Vacuo’s vicious cycle) and pads down the carpeted hallway from the bathroom to her own room, though her ear catches a muffled sound just across from her before she has the chance to potentially ignore it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her head hangs and she lets go of her doorknob before turning to Velvet’s door. If she’s hearing things right, Velvet’s crying again. She cries a lot more these days, often alone and often for longer than anyone should be able to cry. If it were anyone else, Coco’s fist would be banging against the door to get them to shut up and toughen up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t do that here. She’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Velvet Scarlatina</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and whether Coco realizes it herself or not, she loves her too much to hurt her any more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, she lets her knuckles fall against the door a few times in a light knock before stepping back and adjusting her shades over her eyes. There’s silence on the other side, which Coco waits somewhat patiently to end, before the door opens a crack and Velvet peers through at Coco.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Coco says, cool as ever in the hopes that it’ll ease Velvet’s anxieties.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet glares at her scrutinously before frowning. “Go away, Coco. I don’t want any games.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Games?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet’s eyes dart down to Coco’s body, and sure it </span>
  <em>
    <span>might</span>
  </em>
  <span> send a small rush of exhilaration under her skin, but right now she’s sure Velvet needs something other than what Coco’s best at.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco shakes her head and offers Velvet her most earnest smile. “Honey, no. I heard you crying. I wanted to see if you were okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet pauses, probably considering Coco’s words. If she were in Velvet’s position, she’d probably also be a little reluctant to open up, especially to Coco. As much as she hates to admit it, she hasn’t exactly been Velvet’s number one supporter since the Fall. She’s tried, honestly, but what Coco thinks is comforting or reassuring clearly doesn’t work for everyone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’d been a lot closer at Beacon, at least. Maybe, Coco hopes in silence behind her shades, she can find that closeness again. Gods only know how much she misses it, and whether or not she’s ready to confess it to herself she loves Velvet too much to feel comfortable from a distance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet sighs and opens the door for her. In the dim haze of lamplight, Coco’s at least now more able to make out the puffy red circles under her eyes and the wet shine of tears on her cheeks. Part of her wants to reach forward and wipe those last few tears away, croon some suave reassurances that’ll toss Velvet into her open arms, and pepper her skin with hot kisses that’ll chase the sadness out to dry in the desert.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Old habits die hard, of course. Coco thinks maybe they should have bit it back at Beacon; at least then finding this lost closeness might be a little bit easier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet sinks down onto her bed and curls in on herself, bracing her knees against her chest and linking her hands in front. “Do you miss it, Coco?” she asks. Her voice is frail, raspy, stitched together only by the promise of reassurance Coco’s come to offer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Coco does her best. Really, she does. Sincerity’s not her favourite colour (it doesn’t go with her eyes), but she figures she can set aside her own ego for enough of a moment. She closes the door over behind her and leans back against the wall, arms hanging at her sides instead of folded in front of her chest. She parses through different words, different phrases, that she’s sure must be comforting before finally selecting one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco dips her shades just a bit lower, peering over the rims at Velvet. “You want a hug?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet’s eyes shoot harshly up to her and hold what amount of her gaze she can take. “Are you serious?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco shrugs. “Yeah, I’m serious.” Velvet glares at her, and Coco figures she’s probably said the wrong thing. “Or we don’t have to hug. That’s cool, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet sighs, and Coco’s own disappointment and confusion fits somewhere into the sound. Maybe there’s a reason Coco’s built herself up, chosen on which terms to let the ghosts of Beacon’s fall in. It’s all so much easier to deal with when you have control, and Coco - as much as she used to believe (recently enough for it to still be humiliating) - can’t control other people. She can’t control what they feel, or how they choose to express those feelings. She can only be there to help.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some days, it’s much harder work than she thinks fair, but maybe that’s what she gets for being the survivor, the unflappable, stone-cold bitch built up behind a cool veneer, dark shades, and glossy chocolate lipstick. Maybe dealing with others’ ghosts is so much harder, and she’s the one who has to do it because she’s already dealt with her own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco wants to find the words that’ll comfort Velvet. Really, she does. Even if she won’t admit to it just yet, she loves Velvet too much to give up so quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco pushes herself away from the wall and saunters over to the bed, sitting down beside Velvet with her knees wide apart and her hands joined between them. She’s still thinking of the right words - of </span>
  <em>
    <span>any</span>
  </em>
  <span> words, really - to get that look out of Velvet’s eyes. Really, she’s only emboldened by the fact that Velvet hasn’t asked her to leave yet. She owes her a reason to let her stay.</span>
</p><p>"Can you give me something, Velv?" she asks finally, splitting the silence a bit more than she wishes she had. Maybe patience isn't her strong suit, but everyone has to work with what they've got.</p><p>
  <span>Velvet holds onto the silence, and Coco waits, her muscles tensing with every passing second her request goes unanswered. Velvet eventually breaks her pause with a shaky sigh, and she doesn’t look over to Coco when she asks, “Do you miss it, Coco?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco pauses to consider her answer, waiting just as intently for Velvet to give up and hoping her answer beats her there. “<em>It</em> being Beacon, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet gives her a small nod.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do,” Coco says. It’s hardly a lie, but she doesn’t admit it often. Half the time she can hardly even remember what she misses. Most of it’s buried under tons of rubble that even she’s not strong enough to move.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?” Velvet’s voice fills with hope again and she looks over to Coco with eyes too wide for someone so hurt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s probably just looking for hope, Coco laments, knowing that she’s probably the last person who should be giving it out. She’s still not sure how, but it’s her job to find out. She’s the survivor. She’s Coco Adel. She’s not the one dealing with this pain, and she shouldn’t be the one making sure others suffer longer than they need to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet watches her, searching, and Coco hopes she finds what she’s looking for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you miss about it?” Velvet asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You,</span>
  </em>
  <span> is what Coco almost says. She keeps that one behind her shades, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mostly not having so much sand around,” is what Coco actually says. It earns a small, wet laugh from Velvet, and she pushes forward. “And rain. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gods</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I miss rain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too,” Velvet murmurs softly. “Remember when we’d all sit together in the cafeteria with our coffees and our cocoas and just watch it fall?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes her a moment before she’s able to recall the image, but when she does recall it, it’s vivid, like a snapshot shared between the two of them. She’d always been calmed by the rhythmic patter of rain against the large academy windows and by the soft aroma of hot chocolate mixing into warm steam under her chin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s all gone now, saved from oblivion only by the memories of those moments.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s Coco Adel. Memories aren’t for her to keep. She’ll find them in the wistful curve of Velvet’s half-smile and the melancholic ring of hazel in her glossy brown eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet’s expression falls slightly, and Coco follows it back to her earlier melancholy. “How do you do it, then? Keep it all in?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s Coco Adel. She’s been built up since day one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s the lipstick, a striking chocolate colour to make her look so severe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wears those shades, hides her eyes. Everything’s been building up behind them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s Coco Adel. She’s survived by building it all up and keeping it all back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t even remember the last time she cried.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now it’s Coco’s turn to search, finding what she hopes is an answer in her gaze. The only image she sees in the glossy reflection is dark, tinted shades, and she can’t help but wonder how long she’s had to be the survivor. The Huntress reflected back at her is stony, cool, strong. It's who she's always tried to be, before she ever even knew how to fire a weapon or summon her Aura. It's who she hopes everyone sees when they hear the name Coco Adel, a perfectly curated image accentuating so much of what she's always had.</span>
</p><p>She just never figured she could look so sad behind it all. Of course, Velvet's the only person to ever capture that side of her. It's almost frustrating how good at it she is, really.</p><p>
  <span>Coco sighs and pulls the sunglasses off her face, holding them up between them. “These have helped quite a bit, honestly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet looks down at the shades held in her hand and then looks back up at Coco. “I can tell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coco laughs, and it’s wet and rough and her first instinct is to pull those sunglasses back on, rely on what she's built into them. No one else will ever get to see her like this. This is just between them, a snapshot for Velvet to find some hope in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, she lets them lower and brings the heel of her palm to her eye, wiping at the tears starting to spill over. “Sometimes accessorizing is a lot more practical than you expect it to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Velvet laughs again, and Coco laughs with her, and it’s a way better medicine for tears than any hugs or empty platitudes, Coco thinks. She’s Coco Adel, the survivor, the one who’s dealt with her ghosts. Or maybe she’s still dealing with them. Who’s really to say. Coco's never really put too much stock into the things she can't shoot or screw, but some things are just too haunting to neglect forever. The tears in her eyes aren’t exactly easy to describe, and the deep tears in her skin that have long scarred over are just as hard to scrub from her body as the memories of Beacon’s fall are from what little memory she has left. So much of it is engraved in her skin, her soul, hard to find but still very much <em>there</em>. The rest are all Velvet’s to keep safe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s really no wonder to Coco that she cries so often.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sunglasses that sit between them feel so much heavier now, with so much built up in those dark lenses to keep the rest of her back. But now she sees Velvet’s smile more clearly, more bright than the dull lamplight should allow. There’s hope in that smile again, and Coco prays that it’s just as difficult to scrub.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What else do you remember?” Coco asks, and she delights in the way Velvet’s eyes light up. She sets her sunglasses down onto the bed and lets Velvet’s stories run in her own mind like pictures of a life she’d pushed back just to make it out on the other side unscathed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she hopes these shared memories are hard to scrub, too.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed !! As always, I really appreciate comments, feedback, and constructive criticism !</p><p>Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnshoney">burnshoney</a> for beta-ing this fic, be sure to check out their works !!</p><p>I'm @PatchoDraws on Twt and Tumblr, where I talk a <em>lot</em> about Crosshares. If you want more Crosshares fics, here are a few more of mine:</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28190274">love me not.</a><br/><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27268816">Let Me See; Go Tomorrow</a><br/><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536051">can you feel the panic inside (M)</a></p><p> </p><p>Thanks again, stay safe !!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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